Email is still the most cost-effective marketing tool, enabling you to reach people who have actually given you permission to communicate with them and who are therefore more likely to pay attention to your message and respond to your calls-to-action.

Each month, the researchers from trendwatching.com highlight a new consumer trend that impacts businesses and lifestyles around the globe. Now, they are taking their show on the road, travelling 13 cities to present its 2012 Consumer Trend Seminar.

Basic Lead, organisers of the annual DISCOP Africa which focuses on the film and television content market, has announced that they will subsidize the attendance of up to 100 international content buyers at the event. Acquisitions executives who are interested in the increasing range of quality content and formats created in Africa will be targeted.

At the fifth Thought Leadership Digibate this Friday, 4 May 2012, hosted by Aegis Media and BizCommunity, some of the country's leading experts in the media and marketing sector will discuss and debate topics in five key areas that featured in Bizcommunity.com's recent 2012 Biz Trends Report.

Following the recent publication of the 2012 Biz Trends Report, sponsored by Aegis Media, some of the key trend topics will be brought alive at the fifth Thought Leadership Digibate on Friday, 4 May 2012. Hosted by Aegis Media in conjunction with Bizcommunity.com, for the first time this monthly debate will be held in Johannesburg and broadcast live via mobile or pc audio-streaming, 9.15am-11am.

The 2012 AdReview Conference on 17 May will feature Ann Mack, a global expert on trends covering "Ten things to watch for in 2012." She is JWT's director of trend spotting in New York and she can tick off more than 100 worldwide trends that signal the way our lives are changing, including the one trend that's behind the obsession with social media. She calls it FOMO - the "fear of missing out".

Considering the amount of texting we do today, emoticons have 'exploded' and, whether used in Skype, BBM, SMS or WhatsApp, they have become a distinct style of expression and form a vital part of casual/digital vernacular punctuation. But what are the implications of these obscure little visages for marketers?

To date, there are two brands in particular, Absolut and Nike, which have hit the ground running when it comes to going beyond a social media presence and influencer engagement, making it difficult for challenger brands to catch up and maintain the pace. A third brand, Carling Black Label, did phenomenally last year by focusing less on social media and more on influencers [video].

In light of the online shopping trend, intellectual property proprietors face new challenges with the enforcement of their rights against new forms of unauthorised use across millions of websites, in multiple languages and domains. Enforcement of rights is costly and difficult in the online environment, so companies are advised to implement methods of proactively deterring infringement before it occurs.

As PR and social media agencies such as Gullan&Gullan work with our clients to plan for 2012, we're finding some interesting trends coming through, both from our local initiatives and from our global ICOM partners. Here are some of our findings...

Marshal Cohen, New York-based analyst and expert on consumer behaviour, once said, "Trends come and go very rapidly. The problem is that they're not catching on for a longer period of time." Stephen Beattie, Marketing Manager of Pyrotec, agrees with Cohen's theory but insists that it is not necessarily negative.

While the theme song for the Year 2012 will undoubtedly be ''It's the end of the world as we know it..." by R.E.M., and we'll be bored with all the End-of-the-World theme parties and raves and launches by March already... in case the world doesn't end, these are some essential trends and things you need to know for the year to come [with additional editing and contributions from moi - managing ed].

That was my first reaction when Bizcommunity's editor Simone Puterman requested an article predicting 12 trends for 2012. A "trend" is defined as "a general tendency, movement, or direction". In my honest opinion, what most people will be purporting as trend is merely (if you analyse it properly), new and improved technology and ideas.

I'm risking joining the ranks of ludicrousness by jumping in the mire of guesstimation. I'm not focusing on any specific area of our industry; after all, any development affects us all. I have tried to be broad, though. Oh, and I've avoided trends. The following will be stalwarts for years to come - the temporary is never attractive, anyway. Unless you married Liz Taylor.

The fragmentation of the media and the mind-boggling range of sources of information available to readers have conspired to cause publishers of print media to re-evaluate their roles. Does that mean that print is dead? No, far from it, but periods of serious introspection are nonetheless the order of the day for publishers of newspapers and magazines across the globe.

With social media and connectivity transforming communications, clients are asking for dedicated, proactive and tech-savvy teams who can provide content and counsel which talks beyond 'the product' and positions them as industry leaders. Lower marketing budgets and higher client expectations means agencies need to continually develop and deliver more to address the challenges faced by the communications industry in 2012.

In 2012, businesses will take a more aggressive approach to transforming their marketing efforts and reducing their cost per lead, by focusing more on permission-based, inbound marketing programmes that allow customers to find them.

2012 heralds a brand new chapter for radio advertising and, more and more, savvy advertisers are acknowledging that successful campaigns demand the time, effort and nurturing of an involved team and more. Here's the lowdown on what to expect from radio (advertising) in 2012... [multimedia]

Twenty Twelve, year of the dragon, a leap year and the year the world as we know it is meant to end. I believe it will, not in a dooms-day fill-my-bunker-with-canned-food kind of way but in a thinking, progressive, collaborative and connective way. It's a phoenix year, where great ideas and people will rise from the economic ashes and drive informed action.

2011 saw the rise of more social media influencers and thought leaders; more conversations influenced how brands are perceived; and the fad of a Facebook page became more questioned than ever before. Or did that apply only in conferences and meetings I went to? Here are my predictions for 2012.

2012 started with an announcement that, for the first time, digital music sales topped physical CD sales. Therein is the undeniable fact and confirmed trend for 2012 in communications: digital is officially the leading arm of the communications platform.

Consumers hold the upper hand in how we advertise: they are the ones who are more empowered, are demanding more and are less loyal. The challenge is to get to know your consumer! 2012 will see various trends being built upon where there is a convergence of media platforms, a need to share information in real time and a demand for cross-platform content and messaging that can simultaneously reach numerous audiences.

In the last few years we've seen an increase in online consumer conversation as more and more South Africans gain access to the Internet, mostly via mobile. While this increase has been on the cards for some time, this year we're seeing proof of a much larger local online community. 2012 will be the year that industries better grasp how to reach us all.

It's back to basics for marketers on teen marketing - between all the talk about millennials and the born-digital, marketers have been swept up in a wave that makes it easy to forget the fundamentals. Here are several that marketers need to keep in mind when talking with today's teens (age range 11-19), regardless of what channel you choose to use.

Trends arise from major shifts in global thinking. Otherwise they tend to be fads and blind alleys. And so to only look at trends is like trying to map the ocean by studying the waves. We need to dive deep, to the currents underneath, the reefs and the ocean floor. And so it is a time of fundamental change and it is happening at bewildering speed.